(Toaster Oven) Meatloaf With Chili Sauce Recipe

Scratch that. Depending on how you look at it, I either have a large kitchen with a couch, TV, and bookshelves in itor a living room with a sink, refrigerator, and stove. Yes, my living room and kitchen are essentially one large room. Oh, New York, New York.

Anyway, with literally a foot of counter space to work with, cooking at home is sometimes a bit of a chore. That's why I went a little crazy the other day here at the Serious Eats office, cleaning up and organizing our underused kitchenette to free up a relatively ample work surface. My plan was to make my National Meatloaf Appreciation Day meatloaf in the toaster oven here. Crazy, I know, but it was either that or the microwave, and not even I am willing to go there.

So with a made-over work-ready kitchenette on stand-by, I made a quick mid-morning trip to the Whole Foods a couple blocks from the office, with my recipe in hand.

My recipe is one I got from Martha Stewart's Everyday Food magazine. And just so you don't think I never cook at home, I'll have you know that this recipe is taped to the inside of my cupboard there, with annotations and such scrawled on it. My amended recipe, with notes and photos, after the jump.

Divide mixture in half. Gently form each half into a log, placing one log in an 8 1/2-by-4 1/2-inch loaf pan. Do not press down or into corners. For other log, you may refrigerate (for up to 1 day) or freeze for later use.

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Bake 50 minutes. Mix together 1/8 cup of chili sauce and ketchup and the tablespoon of brown sugar. Brush glaze onto top of loaf; continue cooking until juices run clear and an instant-read thermometer inserted into thickest part registers 160°F, about 10 minutes more.

Note: For even more crisp edge surface, you can form meat mixture into a loaf shape and bake directly drip pan.

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I decided to make my National Meatloaf Day meatloaf at the office. I figured, why not? We have a toaster oven. We have a sink. We have more counter space there than I have at my place. Plus, there's a Whole Foods a mere 3 blocks away. So after a quick mid-morning trip to the store and a bit of prep work, I had some of my mis en place

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The ingredients, more or less. Well, less. Less the chili sauce, white bread slices, salt and pepper, brown sugar, ketchup.

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The ingredients, more or less. Well, less. Less the chili sauce, white bread slices, salt and pepper, brown sugar, ketchup.

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I brought in my chef's knife and a loaf pan, but I forgot to bring in my really big mixing bowl. Actually, I left the house with it that morning, but I remembered that we had this *fairly* large bowl at the office. It wasn't big enough, though. I really should have brought in my big bowl. In this bowl are all the ingredients. Ready to be mixed by hand.

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The recipe makes enough for two loaves. I only had on loaf pan, so I baked the one on the left and placed its less-fortunate, not-to-be-cooked "meathunk" in a Ziplock bag for cooking tomorrow.

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The recipe says to mix by hand but not to overdo it. Overmixing yields a tough meatloaf. I don't think I overmixed it.

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The recipe makes enough for two loaves. I only had on loaf pan, so I baked the one on the left and placed its less-fortunate, not-to-be-cooked "meathunk" in a Ziplock bag for cooking tomorrow.

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One of the biggest struggles I have with meatloaf is keeping it from crumbling. Would mine hold together?

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No! It crumbled. Dagnabbit! I don't think I mixed thoroughly enough to distribute the torn bread and eggs as binder. I also will use finer breadcrumbs in the future. What I used were closer to nibblets you'd feed birds. So this looked good as a *loaf* but disintegrated at the touch of the knife. My failed attempt at meatloaf reminded me of that *other* Meatloaf—the fat singin' dude. Has Weird Al done a parody song sung to the tune of "I Would Do Anything for Love"? ... "I would eat anything for lunch. Yes, I would eat anything for lunch. But I won't eat that" Hmm ... The truth is, I did eat the meatloaf, even crumbly....

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My solution was to use "post-bake binding agents," aka two slices of bread. Which was fine, because I was able to move on to my favorite thing about meatloaf anywaythe Leftover-Meatloaf Sandwich. Bonus: This one was warm, right out of the oven. While this meatloaf made the office smell great, nobody except me seemed to really dig in. Silence told me all I needed to know. This meatloaf was most assuredly not serious eats.

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Meatloaf II, Electric Toaster Oven Boogaloo

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The following day, I decided to make the second loaf. I had dropped the second ball of meatloaf mixture into a large Ziploc bag and refrigerated it. So, about an hour and a half before lunchtime, I grabbed it, let it sit outside the fridge to warm up a bit and then, remembering the disastrous first attempt, I mixed this loaf a little more. With only half the meat, there was room in the bowl to mix it easily. Anyway. Here's a picture of the toaster oven I've been using. She's a beaut, ain't she?

Adam Kuban is the proprietor of the pop-up Margot's Pizza, which serves bar-style pizza. But you may also know him as the founder of Slice (RIP, 2003–2014) where he has written thousands of blog posts about pizza. He also created A Hamburger Today and served as Serious Eats's founding editor (2006–2010) after having sold those sites to SE.

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